Negroland

The daughter of a successful paediatrician and a fashionable socialite, Margo Jefferson spent her childhood among Chicago's black elite. She calls this society 'Negroland': 'a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty'. With privilege came expectation.Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments – the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of post-racial America – Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions.

'A personal memoir with profound political resonance, Negroland is an illuminating exploration of the racial politics of culture and class.' -- The Irish Times
'Jefferson writes with piercing clarity of a childhood which was full of love and opportunity at home, but also saturated by contradictions, confusions and a racism which corrodes, like rust, to the heart's core.' -- The Observer
'Negroland is a sharp-eyed cultural commentary on an era of America that has often been too simply told.' -- The Guardian
'A fascinating account of the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic's upbringing among Chicago's black elite community. It's an intriguing look at the way race and class interplay in the United States ... It's sharp, thoughtful stuff, unafraid and honest, making Negroland an important as well as an engrossing read.' -- The Big Issue
'A candid memoir about 'race' in America that zooms into sharp focus right now and makes you question everything, even the too easy term 'race in America'. The book rings and chimes and finds strength in contradiction.' -- The Herald
'[A] meditation on race, sex, class and American culture, told through the prism of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's memoir of her rarefied upbringing and education as the daughter of a successful paediatrician.' -- The Bookseller

The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson previously served as book and arts critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York Magazine, The Nation and Guernica. Her memoir, Negroland, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She is also the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. Robin Miles is a narrator with over 15 years of experience. In addition to reading works of fiction, autobiography and sociology, Robin has been heard reciting geophysical facts at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, leading sexual-harassment training on the internet, imparting New York’s legal codes for disabled lawyers and providing dubbing and dialogue for dozens of feature films and television shows.

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